


with or without you

by orphan_account



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Secret Relationship, Wakes & Funerals, sometimes we need to be sad so we can be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 01:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18488146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's a sad day. It's so sad. Holland's funeral is today and Kell can't control his grief.





	with or without you

**Author's Note:**

> big sad but nice ending

It was not a simple funeral. Holland hadn’t had a will, and the people of White London weren’t keen to go back to letting the strong fight for the throne. So Kell had agreed to help organize things. 

 

He hadn’t expected this horrible, gut-wrenching sadness to follow him around like a shadow though. He hadn’t realized how much Holland had meant to him until it was too late. 

 

Kell was always too late. 

 

So now that he’s trying to give Holland’s eulogy and he’s in front of at least five thousand people, his brain decides this would be a good time to break down. It comes in an unpleasant wave, like the way the water draws out into itself before a tsunami wave strikes. He feels sick to his stomach and he’s blinking back tears, his hands shaking the scrap of parchment Holland’s eulogy is written on.   

 

Lila is at his side in a moment. “Kell, sweetheart, you’re making a scene,” she whispers to him. But he doesn’t care, Holland had been his  _friend_.  

 

His equal. 

 

Lila takes over the eulogy and reads from the script Kell had spent  _hours_  on. It’s not right, he should be up there, he should be telling these people what a good man Holland was. 

 

Holland was his good man. 

 

Not, that anyone strictly needed to know that. 

 

He actually thinks Lila suspects, not that she would ever say anything. 

 

He just wants to taste Holland’s lips on his one more time he wants to feel the steady thrum of power coursing through his veins as Holland holds him. 

 

He loved Lila but she was not the other half of his soul. He hadn’t grown up knowing her. She wasn’t his first kiss or his first fuck. Holland took parts of Kell to the grave with him, his soul would always be fractured now, never whole again. 

 

“You know I’m not sure why you’re crying,” said a hauntingly familiar voice. He knows his mind is playing tricks on him, his grief is toying with his brain. He shakes his head without looking up.

 

“Kell,” the voice says. 

 

“You’re not r-real, you’re not h-here, and I cannot bear another second of this.” He pushes up from his spot on the wall and what he sees nearly stops his heart. 

 

Holland is there, his hand his on Kell’s arm. He looks thinner and even more worn than the last time he’d seen Holland. Holland’s hand is warm.

 

Kell collapses against Holland’s chest. There is no way this isn’t real, Holland’s here, he’s here, he’s here. And everything is going to be ok. 

 

Holland kisses Kell’s hair and holds him while he sobs because he thought he’d lost his first love forever. 

 

As soon as Kell can stop shaking and crying, Kell looks into Holland’s eyes. They are still mismatched, one eye black from corner to corner and the other a deep green.

 

He’s still antari. He’s still Holland. “Take us home,” Kell said.

 

Holland nicks his arm with the blade Kell hands him and says, “As tacsen.”

 

They spend the rest of the day in bed. Kell plies Holland with wine and sex and food. When the day ends they are utterly satisfied.


End file.
